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Guinan: ‘Got to look really hard’ to find drought in Missouri
Missouri State Climatologist Pat Guinan says Missouri is the exception to adjacent areas that have some degree of dry weather.
“We do have a few pockets of dryness in far southeastern Missouri, but you’ve got to look really hard to find them,” said Guinan, during a University of Missouri webcast, Thursday. “We’re pretty much essentially drought-free here in our state.”
There are some brief soil and hay drying opportunities in Missouri now, according to Guinan, but the northern part of the state could see severe weather by Friday evening.
“The highest likelihood, in regard to a severe weather threat will be damaging winds,” said Guinan. “Initially, there could be some hail with the storms, but I think the damaging wind component will be the one we need to keep an eye out for tomorrow [Friday] night, especially, again, across northern Missouri.”
Guinan said he would not be surprised to see flash flood watches issued, especially for northern and northeastern Missouri from Friday night through Sunday morning. A slight chance for excessive rain, he said, could have an impact on most of the state in the next couple of days.
Right now, area rivers are below flood stage, but, he said, with already wet soil moisture conditions, it will not take much for anything that falls to translate to runoff and to bring those rivers back up.
“They are indicating a large area of northern Missouri may receive two-to-four inches of rain through the weekend, with up to six inches locally,” said Guinan. “So please, be aware of this potential flash-flooding heavy rainfall as we go into the weekend.”
Guinan adds that the “bullseye” for two-plus inches of total rainfall through the weekend is the southeastern part of Iowa, northern Missouri, and western Illinois. “These,” said Guinan, “are conservative totals.”
